...One would not usually list ‘watching people suffer’ as something that makes them laugh. I am no exception, but this changes when watching a Martin McDonagh or Harold Pinter Black Comedy. On viewing McDonagh’s The Lieutenant of Inishmore and Pinter’s The Homecoming, two vastly different Black Comedies. When watching these plays, I found myself laughing at what would seem like the most inappropriate places, if one was only looking at the violent and chaotic visuals. It is in their staging that the dialogue, characters and settings mix to create laughter and cartharsis. On viewing NIDA’s production of The Lieutenant of Inishmore, I discovered that one of the most laughter-inducing scenes was also one of the most violent. The second scene of the play where the mad son of Donny, Padraic, is torturing a ‘drug pusher’, James, is visually disturbing. I saw James hanging upside down, blood trickling down from his massacred feet to his horrified face. Despite this, the lyrical, song-like way in which Padraic adresses him, coupled with the highly satirical dialogue, provokes the audience to laugh and creates a funny scene. Padraic tells James sincerely to ‘Be pickin’ yer nipple’, as he feels it to be a kind gesture rather than cutting off both nipples. The extreme stupidity with which Padraic spoke incited laughter fom the audience around me, and focused attention away from the macabre nature of the scene. Inspired by my viewing of the NIDA production, I played the character of Davey...
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...overview of film primarily from and about the “Third World”. In chapter one “From Eurocentrism to Polycentrism”, they reviewed standard criticism of view in literary in cinematic work. This essay is aims defined the stereotypical images and roles of African Americans in films. First of all, the movie “Tarzan, The Ape Man” is the fairly easy target for people interested in the perpetuation of anti-black stereotypes. Tarzan is presented as a naked savage who doesn’t learn to wear clothes. It’s racist when in the movie, when Tarzan warning Jane and her father that Tarzan, the owner of the jungles has killed beasts and many black men. He pelts animals with thrown objects to torment them. He kills animals for pleasure. To Tarzan all blacks are lower. Besides, in the movie, the Africans of the Mbongan tribe are cannibalism, superstitious, contemptible and debased. Here it come the love of Tarzan, Jane a “white” woman is defined as beautiful, and apparently resourceful and intelligent. However, Esmeralda is presented as a black nanny stereotype. Her character old dialogue is an affront to all women and to all black. The positive attributes of the 'whiteness “and the negative attributes of the 'black” in this movie represent an interpretation of discrimination by that time. It’s mentioned in Black Feminist Thought, the author expressed that such stereotypical images have included mammies,...
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...culture, specifically racial and class issues, than most academics can hope to explain. As James Lipton suggests in his interview with Dave Chappelle on the talk show Inside the Actor’s Studio, black comedy has been an important form of art for learning about the black condition. Comedians, such as Bill Cosby, Chris Rock, and Eddie Murphy are just a few of the black comedians that have used their art to provide those insights and induce change in society. The late Richard Pryor understood more so than others that in comedy he had “‘a unique vehicle’ at his disposal that he would be wise to employ for ‘meaningful expression’” and his declared successor, Dave Chappelle, did as well (Simpson 114). The influence of Chappelle and Pryor’s comedy on the American audience has been a highly researched topic. The influence of the most recent and still dominant figure, Chappelle, has yet to be entirely seen, as many of his performances are hardly a decade old. It is undisputed among scholars and critics, however, that, like Pryor, Chappelle through his art “has made us look at ourselves and laugh at ourselves,” stimulating an open discussion about a multitude of issues including race (Lipton). Therefore, through their comedic art, Richard Pryor and Dave Chappelle, whose backgrounds shape their comedy, offer important insights and critiques of racial stereotypes. Their jokes help show which racial issues have improved as well as show which problems have remained a...
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...people’s lives he also became a pioneer for many black actors by starring many TV shows like “I Spy”, ” Fat Albert”, and “The Cosby Show” .Whether it be through concert appearances or recordings, television or films, commercials or education, Bill Cosby has the ability to touch people’s lives. William Henry Cosby Jr was born on July 12, 1937 in Philadephia, Pennsylvania, to Anna and William Cosby. Cosby's father joined the navy and was away from home for months at a time. Cosby, as the oldest son, helped his mother pay the bills by having various jobs such as delivering groceries and shining shoes. At school, he was known for being a class clown by his teachers and for being a great story teller and also being a star athlete in various sports such as track and field, football, and basketball. Growing up in a poor family Cosby learned very early in life that his humor will get him through tough times. During his off time Cosby would listen to one of his favorite comedians Jerry Lewis on the radio, and started to imitate him. While his mother always pushed for him and his brothers to get an education Bill was never interested in school because he always failed his classes, so during his tenth grade year Cosby decided to drop out of high school and enlist in the US Navy in 1956. In the Navy Bill was working as a physical therapist in Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland, during this time Cosby began to realize his gift of comedy. When he was attending to the injuried he would make...
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...Professor Nancy Fraser English EAC150 17/10/2012 MLA Documentation Essay The author Roslyn Foy explains the deeper emotions that resides in Armand the protagonist of the story Desiree’s baby by Kate Chopin. Armand’s cruel actions towards the people around him do not only suggest racism in the nineteenth century; he is man that must comply and live up to his great reputation. Foy brings up the subject of his mother, suggesting that even though she died when Armand was only eight years old, he must have remember her physical appearance but somehow he has suppressed that fact. This questions that whether Armand’s cruel actions came from a social point of view or does it deprive from his suppression of his mother and his past. This eventually led him to abandon his wife and son, the author suggest that his hatred towards them is the hatred towards himself and his origins. Armand is a character that is confused and angry with his past and finally realizes at the end that he is the very thing that he hates the most. In this critical essay, the author Leon Lewis illustrates an overview of Langston Hughes overall work and what he represents as a literary writer. Hughes is known as the “Laureate of Black America”, he has the desire to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America. His work usually consists of rhymes and poems, and the language of the black community. Even though some of his work is appeal more towards young adult readers, his work is...
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...Shakespeare In this essay I will explore Shakespeare’s two plays Romeo and Juliet and Much Ado about Nothing. These plays are presented in the 16th Century. Romeo and Juliet is about 2 lovers who meet but they are from rival families. At the end of the play they both kill each other, it ends in a tragedy. Much Ado about Nothing is about lovers who meet but Claudio thinks that Hero cheated him but at the end of the play it ends and all the couple marries and live happily ever after, this play is a comedy. At the start of the play Lord Capulet seems loving towards his daughter by saying “My child is yet a stranger in the world. She hath not seen the change of fourteen years. Let there be 2 more summers wither in their pride Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride”. This suggests that that Capulet wants her daughter to wait 2 more summers and wait for her to grow up and be a bride. The word “stranger” implies that her daughter is innocent and she doesn’t know the world yet. In a similar way at the start of Much Ado about Nothing, Leonato shows that he loves his daughter Hero by saying “But will acquaint my daughter withal, that she may be the better prepared for an answer if peradventure this be true”. This makes me think that Leonato is a soft person and he will let his daughter have a choice to marry or not. The word “acquaint” suggests that Leonato is soft and not forceful towards his daughter. In Act 3 scene 1 the relationship between Lord Capulet and Juliet worsens by saying...
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...Elianne El-Amyouni Dr. Sabah Ghandour English 244 Comedy and Tragedy in Drama “All tragedies are finished by a death. All comedies are ended by a marriage,” (Byron, N.D.). To some degree, Byron is somewhat correct. Of course, there are dramatic texts considered under the category of “tragedy” that do involve death while there are also those that do not. In Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba, the play tragically ends with the death of one of the main character’s daughters. On the other hand, Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, although including tragedy and sadness in the ending, did not involve death. Likewise with comedies, although some classics do end in marriage as in Chekhov’s The Brute, comic endings can vary greatly. Moreover, plays over time have varied greatly in their morals, structure and form, and belong to a much larger scale than only death and marriage. Musical Greek dramas, biblical re-enactments of Medieval drama, pastoral drama of 16th century Italy and the “Theatre of the Absurd” are all contributors to the definition of drama. While Byron may not have been completely serious when coming up with this saying, it is unfair to limit the end of all tragedies to death and of all comedies to marriage, especially since the categories of drama vary greatly. First of all, a common genre in dramatic plays is tragedy. Garcia Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba is an ideal example of Byron’s “tragedy”. The play discusses the sexually repressed lives of a group of young women...
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...the store was” (Figure 1). Humorously, Mr. Crawley’s conclusion about the reason why his friends could never buy happiness may be comical and eccentric, but it conveys Larson’s message about a common and reflective argument in our life as he identifies people’s different aspects of happiness and ways to accomplish it. Is simply painted in black and white with captions at the bottom, the single rectangular panel makes it easier for the readers to recognize Larson’s typical painting style and his message throughout the comic. Looking at the panel, what impresses viewers at the first glance is the “Happiness” store with a remarkable, large signboard on the corner of a crowded street. On the pane of glass, there are several flyers for advertisement such as “Complete your life”. Besides, that store selling happiness is the place which Mr. Crawley’s friends – the characters in the comic did not know. Thus, they were unable to purchase happiness. The hilarious point is that “happiness” is an abstract, ungraspable definition; how come there is a store selling it? Nevertheless, according to Henri Bergson – the author of “Laughter: An essay on the meaning of the comic”, the comic has logic of its own, even in its wildest eccentricities (Bergson). Since happiness is the most desirable and pleasant thing in the world, people may easily get the joke. After laughing, they start thinking and come up with some questions: Can we buy happiness? Where can we buy happiness?...
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...ECE 2980 – Inventing an Information Society Second Essay Assignment Analyze how regionalism and nationalism are related to different modes of listening to the radio in the United States from 1920 to 1980. For long it has been discussed how the radio changed the American people – but this analysis is far too diverse and particular to each individual, since the United States have a wide arrange of ethnicity, religions, races, generations and other remarkable differences between different people. This essay will therefore focus on how the different modes of listening to the radio brought together different nation feelings to society in different timings and places. A Cornell scholar, Benedict Anderson, while reflecting about the emerge of nationalism in one country said one day that it had to be imagined, since all the nation elements and individuals may never meet one another and “yet in the mind of each lives the image of their communion”. The first notable change in general knowledge and feeling about a nation was conceived on the newspaper, that would allow several people to read the same stories about the nation and its people at the same time. The newspaper was the first proof of a country to a regular citizen that through it, would get to know people from distant lands with whom he would share his first sense of non-local community. The importance of the radio wasn’t shadowed by the newspaper’s prior timing. Radio added one more sense to the world...
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...August 20, 2015 3.2.13 Practice: Revision Strategies The tempest one of the most difficult Shakespearean works in my opion to stage, from its stormy, chaotic first scene to its sureality to its ambiguous resolution, with Prospero facing his silent, treacherous brother and renouncing the power that has made every action in the story possible. Potent language remains the central force and mystery of this fathomless play. Prospero speaks almost a third of the lines in The Tempest, and controls the amount of speech every other character on the island has through manipulation and magic. Prospero’s narrative of how he came to the island, what he did once there, and what he is owed for this history, goes largely unchallenged in the text. Yet the play offers innumerable readings and opportunities for alternate staging, particularly in light of postcolonial discourse about Prospero’s relationship with Ariel and Caliban, the legitimacy of his authority, and the nature of his magic and command over language. Though Prospero can be played many ways, there is no doubt he is The Tempest’s show runner. The metatheatrical nature of the play sometimes detracts from its action on the page, but it also offers the chance to explore exactly why Prospero needs an audience for his revenge, and whether or not it satisfies him, onstage. Prospero restricts the sight and knowledge of the other characters, putting them to sleep or manipulating them with invisible forces, but he often lets us, the audience...
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...EN4 Hand Outs Lifelong Learning Intuitive Insight ( realization) Theatre of Life Enriching Education Radical richness Artistry of form and language /described : Philosophical choice of word Truth in the telling Undeniably pleasurable Rapturous appreciation Epiphany in experience * Literature * an art whose medium is language used to affect the imagination. * words themselves can evoke a response even when they are spoken independently of a grammatical setting such as a sentence. * Fiction writers & poets share many of the techniques of literature because their effects depend or universal language art. * points up it’s relationship to other serial arts such as music, dance,& film ( Humanities) * Happens in time * In order to receive it, we must be aware of what is happening now,remember what happened before anticipate what is to come. * A Work of Literature * A construction of separable elements like a structure. * The details of the scene , character or event/group of symbols can be conceived of as the bricks in the wall of literary structure. * If we miss one detail of the story,it would be incomplete comprehension for the readers. * The most important reason why we study literature is not about “what” but “How”.(Literature statement should be beyond peripheral) * Theme * Main idea of literary work is usually a structural decision,comparable to an architectural decisions. * consistency...
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...Elizabeth Warren the Next President of the United States 0 Lawsuit Settled Involving Ferguson Officer Who Allegedly Choked, Hog-Tied A 12-Year-Old 424 GOP Senator Mansplains Democracy To Elizabeth Warren 0 Obama's New Triangulation Strategy Has Democrats On Edge 654 Go to Politics More in Politics Pollster Politics Blog Off The Bus Election Maps Pollster You Might Also Like WorldPost Green Black Voices Latino Voices Gay Voices Business Black-White Wealth Gap Has Reached A 24-Year High 58 RadioShack Planning More Store Closures, Layoffs To Avoid Collapse 28 'Eat More Kale' Guy Beats Chick-fil-A 28 Hurry Up! Big Obamacare Deadline Coming Monday 134 For 'The Interview,' Even Negative Publicity (Like A Massive Sony Hack) Is Good Publicity 11 Go to Business More in Business Small Biz Money You Might Also Like WorldPost Tech Media Arts Sports Weird News Smarter Ideas Urban Progress Media Little Girl Takes Mic From Reporter, Delivers A Spot-On Broadcast At Target 18 Bill O'Reilly Spars With Russell Simmons Over Crime In Black Communities 883 Jorge Ramos Clashes With Sean Hannity On Immigration 304 Report: Ruth Bader Ginsburg...
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...“A Thesis on Dope: The Character Evolution of Malcom Adekanbi” Dope is a coming of age comedy about a black senior in high school named Malcom Adekanbi who sometimes seems kind of white. His goal is to make it into Harvard and to win over Nakia’s heart. But first he has to sell three kilos of molly. Dope reviews what one considers to be their racial identity based on personal interest, upbringing, and hobbies. In the intro, Malcom explains that they (he and his friends) are geeks for liking “white stuff” like singing in their punk band that they named Awreeoh (Pronounced Oreo, like the racial stereotype), skateboards, and getting good grades. Growing up in Inglewood, California, in a neighborhood nicknamed ‘The Bottoms’, its more common for a black kid to sell dope or gangbang, like another character named Dom. It seems like anything that isn’t illegal or a part of a hard black stereotype is considered white. The white stereotype being a kid who speaks grammatically correct, rides skateboards, and anything positive. This sends the message that...
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...to move from a small city to a big city. You start somewhere new; an unknown place filled with new experiences, challenges and strangers. It can be overwhelming at first, and it might as well take some time to grow accustomed to the new culture and what the city has to offer. The situation can especially be difficult to someone who comes from a city, where one is used to live in closely encircling. As an example of this kind of situation is Siri Hustvedt’s essay ‘Living with Strangers’, which is written in 2002 Hustvedt describes in her essay her move from rural Minnesota to New York City in 1978 and how suddenly norms and rules change for her. In Minnesota it is the custom to greet everyone you meet on the road, even though you do not know the person. If you pass someone in silence, you will be considered as discourteous and it can lead to accusations of snobbery. This is the worst and rudest possible thing you can do and it gets compared as a sin in the egalitarian state. A good place to start is the title of the essay ‘Living With Strangers’, because it sums up the thesis in the text and Hustvedt’s point with the text. The title refers to a major problem in every city - whether it is a big or small one, and it is because the society that we live in now has changed and is still changing. The late modern society is characterized by the fact, that we no longer are bound by old traditions and habits. We are instead living in our own little bubble and we consider it opposite...
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...he Dead Father Jerome Klinkowitzís remarkably insightful review of Donald Barthelmeís work begins with an anecdote about an evening they spent together in Greenwich Village (Barthelmeís home for most of his life as a writer), and how a perfectly Freudian remark by Barthelmeís wife put a stop to the writerís boorish mood:ìëWhy Donald,í she said, ëyour fatherís is bigger than yours.íShe was referring to their respective biosin Whoís Who in America.î It is Klinkowitz's well-argued contention that Barthelmeís mid-career novel The Dead Father (1975) not only represents the high-water mark of his skill as a technical master of postmodern prose, but that it also embodies the central neurosis/inspiration driving nearly all his work, from his first published story, ìMe and Miss Mandibleî in 1961, to his last novel, Paradise (1986).(Though The King is mentioned by Klinkowitz, it is clear he considers it to be barely part of the Barthelme canon.)For Klinkowitz, Barthelmeís near-obsessive goal as a post-modernist is to ìburyî his modernist father.For instance, Klinkowitz writes that, while at first glance ìMe and Miss Mandibleî seems a perfectly Kafkaesque tale of a man awakening to grotesquely transformed circumstances, in fact it is ì[f]ree of overweening anxiety and not painfully dedicated to existential questioning or angst ...î[1] ì[Barthelmeís] first inclination is to laugh at rather than flail angrily against the forms and themes of an earlier style ...î[2]Klinkowitz cites ìThe Indian...
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